Friday, December 07, 2007

Potato Package



I love getting packages in the mail. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, I get all squealy and happy.

So yesterday when I got home from work and saw a long-awaited package sitting in the mailbox, I was ecstatic. It was a package full of poems! And it was for me!

See, not that long ago, when I was a student at Carleton, wading through essays on maternalism and European history and media censorship... I came across a poem in a free magazine put out by the English department. It was by a poet named Erin Bidlake, and it grabbed my attention. I kept re-reading it throughout the day, and then I tore it out and brought it home. It's been on my wall for years now.

Last month, I was thinking about how much I'd like to have more of Erin's work. But where was she? It had been a long time since that poem was published. Did she still live in Ottawa? Did she even write anymore?

I went about tracking her down, puddling about on the internets until I found some reliable contact information. It was a shot in the dark, but I thought, why not? She is brilliant, and if she doesn't already know that, she should be told. Simple.

I e-mailed, she responded, and wouldn't you know... She's lovely, still writing, has published books, and is living in the UK. In exchange for my CD, she would send me her poems. It was a steal for me, but I'm not one to refuse great writing.
Instead of making dinner, I read her work. Than I bawled in my living room for a bit, because really, it's that good. Eventually I finished reading and noticed how hungry I was. The moral of the story? If you ever get a chance to read her work or see her speak, go! Oh, and if I can have an extra moral please: Erin should move back to Ottawa so I have regular access to her writing. *coughcoughAreYouReadingThisErincough*

My post-poetry dinner was sweet potato latkes, and although I may be a bad quasi-Jew, I make a damn good potato pancake. My Better Half and I ate very well last night, so much so that I ate the leftovers, and now I don't have a lunch for work.

So it goes.
I'll be at Irene's tonight to see Brian Simms, my dear cousin, perform. I might even sing some surprise backup. And I might be wearing cowboy boots, but we'll see how my feet behave. See you there?

2 comments:

Laura said...

I love how you traded art for art!

Packages are so awesome - The boys have their birthdays and parcels have been arriving and I am just as excited (or even more) than they are to receive them!

Happy holidays!

Andrea... said...

It's all about art for art... Artists are usually broke anyways, so it's the best currency!